All praise belongs to Allāh “like Whom there isnothing. And He is all-hearing, all-seeing”. “He isthe first and the last, the manifest and the hiddenand He knows about everything.” May Allāh send thebest salutations and blessings upon our leader andmaster, Muhammad .

The aspirant to the divine should firstly know that thereality of all things and their hidden force isAllāh. May He be glorified. In turn, His reality isthe being whose existence is indispensable. Itcannot be confined by anything; meaning thereby,that its non-existence cannot be imagined by themind. Nor can any limit upon His Absoluteness bevisualised; despite its capability to be constrictedby Himself.

Our existence is an emanation that cannot be picturedwithout divine existence. The servant's reality iscorporeality and His reality is nothingness. Hisexistence cannot be visualised by itself. So, itsnothingness, earmarked by physicality, can never berelated to divine existence. For this reason, He isneither spirit nor body. A gnostic has said: “TheLord remains the Lord even if He descends; and theservant remains the servant even if he has toascend.”

This means the Creator does not become a servant evenif He were to manifest Himself with the attributes(or features) of a servant such as by means of ahand and other things He has claimed. Nor does theservant become a Creator even if he were to possesssome of His qualities; like the ability to give lifeor death. Existence is therefore one without anypartner in His being, attributes or names. Allāhsays: “Nothing is like Him. And He is allhearing,all-seeing”.

Therefore, Allāh deserves the two states ofmanifestness and concealment. Regarding Hisconcealment, no creature can ever visualise Him;neither through intellect, nor through the senses oranalogy. All of them are created beings that areunable to imagine a being that has existed sinceantiquity and created them. They can only picturethings of their type. But with reference to Hismanifestation, all these newly created entities increation can know Him. At this level, He appears andmanifests Himself to all creation by means of Hisdesire and sanction.